We're All Hiding Broken Souls
by thebluefrenchhorn
Summary: "Would you rather be fake or irreparably broken?" A forgotten encounter between Piper McLean and Luke Castellan.
**We're All Hiding Broken Souls**

* * *

 _"You wear lies like they're armor, but I suppose I can't really judge you, because I do the same."_

* * *

She doesn't like clichés, or cheesy romance movies, except, as her eyes latch onto his figure, she can't help but feel like her heart and her mind have gone to war. She knows what she should do, because he's far too old for her and she's really never been one for mindless crushes, but there's something keeping her there—something unique about him—and she can't bring herself to leave. Let it be known that as much as Piper McLean would later deny it, she truly was her mother's daughter.

It's an act of impulse that draws her to stand up and begin walking towards him, her fingers playing with the old rope bracelet on her wrist as she bites her lip. She doesn't quite understand why she's suddenly so self-conscious, because she's never really cared how she looked, but suddenly she's regretting her choppy hairstyle and praying that the pimples inhabiting her nose would disappear. Even so, her eyes are determined, blazing like liquid fire, and she knows that she can do this.

He turns to face her before she can reach him, and she swears her heart stops as icy blue eyes meet her gaze. She can feel the blood rushing to her face, the logical side of her prickling with annoyance as a look of amusement dances across his features, but she continues forward anyways.

"I'm Piper McLean," she tells him confidently, though that's the exact opposite of how she is feeling.

He stares at her for a second, and she's suddenly very afraid that he'll just blow her off, but he doesn't and she almost lets out a sigh of relief as he responds.

"Luke Castellan."

Her face breaks into a smile, and she can't stop her eyes from tracing the thick, pale scar that runs from the bottom of his eye down to his chin, marring his otherwise perfectly tanned skin. It's extremely sexy, and if the sly grin on his face is any indication, it seems that he knows that as well.

"Do you want to know how I got it?" he asks her, a mischievous smile adorning his face, as he casually points to his scar. "It's really quite an interesting story."

A blush dusts her dark skin in embarrassment, but she still nods her head enthusiastically.

"It all started with a golden apple," he began dramatically, before launching into a ridiculous tale of him traveling across the country while battling an assortment of Greek monsters and permanently borrowing skittles from a wide variety of gas stations. By the end of the story, she's clutching her sides in laughter, wiping tears from her eyes as he exuberantly wrapped everything up.

"So of course my sword was still lost in some random Wegmans and I had to battle the dragon with my own two hands, which didn't go over very well mind you, and right after I grabbed the apple it tried to gouge my eye out. It missed of course, but I don't think I've ever ran faster in my life."

"How long did it take you to make that story up?" She asks curiously, tilting her head ever so slightly to the side. She swears she can see him fondly…reminiscing… while staring at her choppy hair, courtesy of dollar store safety scissors.

He lets out a small chuckle at her words (it seems a little hollow) and quirks an eyebrow, "Who ever said I was lying?"

She scoffs at his words, because a story like that can't really be true. She's lived in California her whole life and something as strange as that has certainly never happened to her. What's he going to tell her next, that he can fly? As if.

"I said you were lying," she retorts cheekily, and she doesn't really understand why she's acting like this. It's always been hard for her to get comfortable enough around people to stop acting overbearingly nice—she's fake like that—but somehow he's been able to steal her trust, and to be honest she doesn't really mind.

"Oh really," he asks slyly, twisting the thin, silvery bronze chain wrapped around his wrist.

"Really," she parries back, "admit it, you're lying."

Icy blue eyes seem to momentarily glaze over at her comment, resembling polished glass, but with a quick shake of his head they're back to normal.

"Never," he finally says, and he's staring at her differently, the twinkle in his eyes being replaced by an intelligent glint. "But what I'm really wondering about, is why Tristan McLean's fifteen-year-old daughter is trying to flirt with a twenty-year-old."

She flinches backwards, despite the fact his tone is anything but harsh, and she crosses her arms defensively, eyes wide.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone about it," she visibly relaxes at his words, but stiffens as he continues. "I understand—I have daddy issues too."

Her throat feels dry, her whole tough-tomboy-act is crumbling, she's looking into his so-very-pleasant blue eyes, and she feels like she can just to tell him anything. Maybe Luke Castellan is the type of person that knows everybody's secrets, but nobody knows his own.

"You can tell me if you want," he says soothingly, a smile upon his face—she doesn't know it's really a smirk—and his arms tentatively wrap around her. "I'm not going to judge you if you cry."

In an instant she's completely thrown herself at him, and years of pushing everything back come spilling forth, breaking the walls she's built around herself. She'll later repair them with rose-tinted glass, but for now, sobs rack her body. "It's just…he's so…I can't even…"

"It's okay," he murmurs into her dark brown hair. "It's okay."

"He's just never there—ever—and he's always way too busy for me. He's always on set, practicing for the movie he's in, or with his agent figuring out his next contract . What makes it even worse is that this is actually his best; he's truly trying to spend time with me, he just sucks at it. It's just so unfaIR AND I HATE IT AND I HATE HIM AND I HATE MOM FOR LEAVING US AND I JUST WANT THEM ALL TO BURN IN HELL!"

She's screaming now and she knows people must be looking at them, but she doesn't care—she needs this. "Sometimes I just feel like he doesn't love me."

She pulls away knowing she must look horrid; her cheeks flushed in the not-so-attractive way, her eyes bloodshot, with snot running down her nose. She feels so broken and alive at the same time, and it's all so very confusing.

"At least your dad tries," he says, breaking the silence, and she swears for an instant his eyes darken and a predatory look flashes upon his face, but it's much too quick for her to be certain. She supposes maybe she's just seeing things, because Luke really seems like such a nice guy. "My dad left me alone with my insane mother."

Her mouth opens to ask him about his 'insane mother', but something in his eyes stops her. "I guess we're pretty similar," she finally says awkwardly.

"Kid, you don't want to be like me," he says, a smile once again adorning his face.

"I think anybody would be lucky to be like you," she states, "you're a good guy Luke."

He shakes his head at her words before turning to leave, and she presumes this is his way of dismissing her. However, she's Piper McLean, and she didn't walk all the way over here just to bare her soul to him and then let him leave.

Her mind is on autopilot as she grabs his shoulders, turning him back towards her with strength she never thought she possessed, and pulling him down by his shirt as she smashes her lips against his. Later, when she finally goes to Camp Half-Blood, she wonders if her mother, Aphrodite, was watching her when she did this, and if so, if she then fainted from surprise. After all, you don't have tomboys like Piper attempting to engage in tongue-wrestling with college age students every day.

He responds to her kiss for a brief second—she isn't aware he's thinking of jet black hair and electric blue eyes in her place—and then gently pushes her away.

He's staring towards her, although, not really seeing her, as he speaks. "I'm a lot of things," he states, "but one thing I'm not, is a pedophile." He starts to laugh at the end, (it's sharp, brittle, and everything a laugh shouldn't be) as if he's just made a joke, and maybe he has, but it's clearly an inside one.

"That's good to know," she responds shakily, the adrenaline of the kiss having drained out of her, leaving her left with gobs of embarrassment.

He turns to walk away again, and this time she doesn't stop him.

"Don't ever let them see you cry," he suddenly calls over his shoulder, his sandy blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight. "They don't deserve your tears." His words make her feel one thousand times better, yet for some reason, she feels like they weren't only meant for her. Perhaps it is better to be fake than irreparably broken.

Later, when she gets home, the first thing she does is race to her laptop and google him.

She's severely disappointed when all she gets are a couple of pictures of nine-year-old Luke and an old amber alert notice from 1997. Still, she saves the photos—she doesn't want to forget him—and pastes them in a Microsoft Word document.

* * *

In the end, Piper does forget him, and it's not until a couple years later that he resurfaces in her life.

Her friends are over, having agreed to help her choose which things to bring to Camp Half-Blood for the summer, when she hears Jason's voice from across the room.

"Who the heck is Luke Castellan?" There's no jealousy in his voice, Jason wasn't the jealous type, but his words still cause a disturbance.

A crash sounds as the box Annabeth is carrying drops to the floor, her arms hanging limply by her sides, like the strings of a puppet being cut. Percy falls to the floor at the same time, thankfully having not been holding anything, and Piper glances at the two of them in worry.

Hazel and Frank look up from the far corner they're working in and share looks of confusion with her as the daughter of Athena and son of Poseidon walk almost mechanically towards Jason.

Even energetic, fun-loving Leo stops at the sight of their two friends freezing up. What could a person have done that caused Percy Jackson, debatably the strongest demigod of their generation, to fall over in shock, and dare she say... fright? He always did say there had only been one sword he had ever feared. She wonders...

She warily follows them, her mind racing to remember what's so special about this 'Luke Castellan', when all she can recall is a mischievous smile.

In Jason's hands is her old laptop, a layer of dust coating it from disuse, and she frowns, her brows furrowing as she tries to connect the dots.

Her kaleidoscope eyes follow the two Greek heroes' gaze to the screen, and she can faintly hear Annabeth murmur 'Luke' underneath her breath like a prayer. On the screen is a picture of a young blonde boy, roughly age nine, with sandy blonde hair, blue eyes and a mischievous smile...a mischievous smile...a mischievous smile...gods what is she missing?

When she reads the caption beneath the photo, realization strikes her like lightning. The five tiny words seem so very insignificant, yet they mean the world to her.

Luke Castellan/My First Kiss

Annabeth glances over towards her and she swears she can see jealousy hidden in the gray depths of her eyes. "Who's he to you?" the blonde asks, her voice steely.

She blinks, frowning, because it's truly quite difficult to get to know somebody in the span of five minutes and then remember them after a couple of years.

"He's not anybody to me," she responded slowly. "I didn't really know him at all."

Annabeth's posture remains rigid, her hands balled into fists and her knuckles white. "Nobody really knew him at all," she spat, her voice slicing sharply through the silence. It couldn't be any more obvious just how personal this is to her. "Not even the ones closest to him."

Piper slowly nods and gives an awkward smile. She feels so very out of place, but as she gazes at Annabeth's face, which is torn between anguish and rage, she decides upon one thing: it is indeed better to wear a mask than to wear your scars. It's just a shame that the attractive blonde she met all those years ago, happens to be one of Annabeth's scars.

* * *

 **Disclaimer:** All rights reserved to the original creator.

 **Author's Note:** As always, thank you so much for spending the time to read through one of my stories. I definitely enjoyed writing this, and I thought writing interactions with such an ambiguous character, Luke, from Piper's perspective was interesting. If you haven't already picked up on it, the main underlying theme of this is story is whether it's better to be fake and internalize your problems or allow your baggage to show on your exterior. I attempted to show this through both Annabeth, somebody who is open about her problems and wears her scars proudly, and Luke, a character who seemed to always be masking his true intentions. Personally, I think Piper follows more of Luke's mentality, not that she isn't proud to be herself, but that she hides her internal struggles, but if you disagree I'd love to hear why. As well, the story is set in the timeframe roughly around the end of The Sea of Monster's and the beginning of The Titan's Curse. I understand that this makes Piper's character older than she's supposed to be, but I've always felt like that because of the combination of her ADHD and dyslexia, along with the fact that her father is movie star, she may have started school a little later as to give her extra time to prepare for the fame.

 **Reviews are always welcome!**


End file.
